Conditions in Pakistan's military jails

I was released last week from the torture unit of a military intelligence jail in Pakistan, after being held without charge for 16 days' solitary confinement, much of it blindfolded and chained (Film-makers held in Pakistan, August 6). I had been travelling from India to Afghanistan with two film-makers when we were apprehended by military police in in Peshawar. I had been looking for the house of a distant relative.

For the next 16 days we were subjected to an astonishing series of interrogations and medical examinations, many while blindfolded and manacled. All around was torture gear - apparatus to drown people, to hang them upside-down, to smash their feet, as well as pliers for extracting teeth, medical drips, electrical equipment, syringes filled with brown liquids, fitted with used needles.

At no time in our ordeal were we permitted to make contact with our embassies. It was clear from the graffiti on my cell walls - most of it written in English in faeces and blood - that we were being held in a unit where British Muslims are frequently "softened up". In the current climate, I am all for rounding up legitimate terror suspects both in the UK and Pakistan. And there is clearly hand-and-glove cooperation between the security services of both countries to track down on radical British Muslims in Pakistan.

It is for this reason I find it very hard to believe British intelligence did not know we were being held. And if they were in the dark, then that is all the more worrying. In the event, British authorities in Pakistan did little to gain our release until my sister, the documentary-maker Saira Shah, arrived and put pressure on British high commission. I fear deeply for all the British subjects I left behind, for most of them do not have family members able to come to their aid. Tahir Shah London

What a pity the government only tries to obtain guarantees against torture when it wants to deport people (Jordan deal, August 11). Why not negotiate agreements to ensure torture is not used on anybody, anywhere? Of course, there already is the UN convention against torture. It just has to be implemented and monitored properly.Dr Kaihsu Tai Oxford